


whispers

by luluquentine



Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: F/M, canon character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:41:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29555793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luluquentine/pseuds/luluquentine
Summary: Harmon, he hears whispered by two hotel staff the day that he checks into the hotel in Mexico City--it is the first time that he has heard her name spoken, pressed in between the sharp punctuated sounds of Spanish in Mexico.
Relationships: Vasily Borgov & Beth Harmon, Vasily Borgov/Beth Harmon
Comments: 10
Kudos: 46





	whispers

**Author's Note:**

> No beta, we die like Beth's maternal figures.  
> I really ought to be working on close your fist around something delicate, but the idea of writing the events of the show from Borgov's perspective kept coming back to me, and I thought it might be an excellent idea to attempt to develop his character within the context of my storyline... so I wrote this instead of sleeping.

_ Harmon _ , he hears whispered by two hotel staff the day that he checks into the hotel in Mexico City—it is the first time that he has heard her name spoken, pressed in between the sharp punctuated sounds of Spanish in Mexico.

_ Harmon _ , he repeats in his head as he shifts to make room on the lobby sofa for his wife, who is victoriously clutching a guidebook.  _ Harmon _ , he repeats in his head as he leans towards his son, who is tugging on his sleeve and asking to go to the zoo.  _ Harmon _ , he repeats in his head as the Soviet contingency is shown into their block of rooms.  _ Harmon,  _ he repeats in his head.  _ Harmon, Harmon, Harmon. _

He sees her adoptive mother first, remembering the woman from a photo tucked into the file (on  _ Harmon _ ) his agents had given the team a month before they arrived in Mexico. No one else particularly cared about anything on  _ Harmon _ (American, and girl) other than their copies of her games, so he took the folder home. It is with him in Mexico City, along with the games of his most notable competitors—all of them Grandmasters and International Masters, except for  _ Harmon _ . Alma Wheatley (her name he sees typed in black ink, foreign English letters against stiff yellowed paper) clutches onto a man he does not know and he looks for  _ Harmon _ , pretending that he is not looking for her, but she is not there, so he turns away, retreats to his room to fight off the worst of the jet lag. The tournament starts in two days.

Mikhail—named for Sonya’s father and his grandfather who had taught him chess—convinces his mother to go to Chapultepec Park the next day, and it is she who convinces him to come along too. “Vaska,” she says, covering the chess sequence he has been studying with her hand and nodding to their son with a meaningful look, “we would enjoy the time more with you.” He is lifting her hand off the paper and shaking his head when he sees their child bouncing excitedly on the edge of the bed and changes his mind for the first time in years.

In fact, he finds that he rather enjoys the lush greenery of the park. It is quieter than he expected, perhaps on account of the rain, and the downpour has taken away the heat that plagued him the last time he was in Mexico. Misha, of course, is delighted most by the animals—he gapes at the lions dozing on the rocks, cranes to see the polar bear in its pool, and wonders at the monkeys, fascinated by their humanoid features and black, intelligent eyes.

They are studying a particularly large silverback, who is obligingly sitting in a corner of the enclosure on a mound of hay, when he feels suddenly unnerved—just as stared at, as if he were inside rather than outside the glass enclosures. As if sensing his discomfort, his wife turns to look at him—but then Misha is asking about where the gorillas are from, and although Vasily senses from the animals’ passiveness that they must have been bred in captivity, he leans forward anyway to study the sign nailed to the wall. It is entirely in Spanish, and Sonya, so gifted with languages, turns back to translate for their son. The gentleness in her soft voice is familiar and soothing—he is about to dismiss the odd sensation from earlier entirely when he feels it again, and although as a World Champion he has had many eyes on him, he has never felt so pinned in place and regarded. When the pressure abates, he himself turns to search for its source, and instead catches a flash of red hair under a shiny plastic hood walking away from him.  _ Harmon _ , his mind whispers slowly in recognition.  _ Harmon _ .

When they return to the hotel, he spares a smile for Mikhail, tells Sonya that he must prepare for the match tomorrow and that they ought to have dinner without him, and then goes directly to the room, to the desk, pulls out the file on  _ Harmon _ and leaves it sitting on the corner of the table as he studies the pieces he had left on the board.

_ Harmon _ —it is whispered from one side of the hotel to the other after she defeats an Italian Grandmaster the first day of the tournament.  _ Harmon, Harmon, Harmon. _

If Vasily Borgov was a lesser man, he might have joined the conversations about the young American. Instead, he plays the day’s match with brutal intensity, watches the games of his fellow Soviet players, then goes back to his room and studies his chessboard, ignoring the file that is steadily gathering dust on a table where everything else moves.

Unlike everyone else at the tournament, he doesn’t speak a single word about  _ Harmon _ .

He is slated to play white against Grandmaster Bilek the second day, and despite a rather notable showing by the Hungarian at the tournament in Havana the previous year, Vasily doubts that the match will be particularly memorable. And it isn’t—until  _ Harmon _ appears during the middle game, just as he moves his knight in preparation of a more aggressive attack. He can feel the heavy weight of her gaze on him, but he refuses to move his eyes from the chessboard. If she is looking for his attention, he will not give it to her. But his fingers are stiff as he takes Bilek’s knight with his pawn, and sets the captured black piece down on the table with more force than strictly necessary, yet he feels more raw and open to attack despite solidifying his position. When he hears the muted click of her shoes against the carpet as she walks away, he is at war with himself—thankful for her disappearance, and angry at her impudence. He crushes Bilek, just as he knows he would.

The next day, he wakes up the morning weighed down with a restless night; his headache is worsened when the young Georgi joins him at breakfast in the practice room, chattering nervously and excitedly about how he is to play  _ Harmon _ today. “When?” he asks, and vaguely feigns disappointment when he discovers that their matches are scheduled for the same time. He does not tell anyone this, but he refuses to watch her matches not because she is not worthy of his time, but because he worries that this  _ Harmon _ of whispers will consume him entirely.

It is minutes before play starts at 11:00, but Vasily passes by the boy’s table, taking the longer route to his own; he hopes to see Girev there, to offer some last words of advice, but instead he finds _ Harmon _ waiting—he snaps his gaze away just milliseconds before he feels the heavy weight of her stare. He nods sharply at Georgi as they pass each other, his heart pounding hidden under his black suit. The restless energy plagues him for his entire match, even as he forces his opponent—some Frenchman who plays too defensively—to resign in just over thirty moves.

He hears the news of the adjournment at dinner. With Sonya and Misha busy exploring the city, he excuses himself early and asks the staff for a plate to bring to the missing Georgi, who he finds frowning over wooden pieces in the practice room. “Hello,” the young teen greets, startling to his feet nervously when he notices the older Grandmaster walking in.

“You need food to think,” Vasily admonishes in return, setting the plate and metalware off to the side of the board as he sits down on the other side of the table. Under his mentor’s watchful eye, Girev obediently downs a few bites of the chicken before he returns to the game, moving the pieces back to where he had left off with  _ Harmon _ . Borgov frowns, pushing the plate closer to the boy even as he studies the formation. Girev’s defense is strong, a trait that he must have picked up from numerous lessons with Luchenko, but it is balanced by the American’s aggressive style.

The two young players are equally matched, but he hears of  _ Harmon _ ’s victory just before his afternoon semifinal match with Rand. He doesn’t look at the board for his final match—instead, the results are carried to him by dinner:  _ Harmon _ , they whisper, to play Borgov. There is a faint line in between the eyebrows of the KGB agent who hands him the notation of  _ Harmon’s  _ last two games.

For all of the intuition her admirers talked about, he knows that she does not have enough skill yet to defeat his years of experience—yet when he returns to his room, he reaches for her file, brushing away the dust that had gathered on its surface, and opens it. He reads again through her interviews and plays through her games with Deidrech, Watts, Solomon, and all the rest until Sonya finally rouses him from his concentration an hour past midnight and urges him to sleep.

He wakes early the next morning, just as the sunrise drifts through a crack in the curtains, and stares up at the ceiling. His mind is clear, and still he feels an undeniable tension running through his body—he is frustrated by this, for a player such as  _ Harmon _ hardly warrants such concern, but there is nothing that he can do to relieve the pressure built up inside his chest. Instead, he goes through the motions of his routine: he brushes his teeth, noting the strong peppermint of the toothpaste, drinks a cold glass of water, and dresses himself in the clothes he had set out the night before: his black suit jacket with his newest white shirt. He has not yet chosen his tie. After a moment’s deliberation, he selects the gold—let the American see that he would not be so easily distracted as easily as Girev had been by her Elizabeth-Taylor-yellow top.

To his displeasure, when he meets with his teammates, they insist on talking about  _ Harmon _ . The two reach a consensus that she will eventually become the U.S. Champion by the following year, and therefore have to be invited to Russia to play in the invitational.

“In Moscow, she’ll be jet-lagged. We can destroy her then,” says Korchnoi, his words louder in the confined space of the elevator.

“She’s getting better,” Tal responds, with no little irritation. “We have to deal with her here or in Paris—before she gets too strong.”

“There’s talk she’s a drunk.” Korchnoi says to Vasily, as if he did not already know what the whispers said. “And her game is almost all attack, and so she doesn’t always watch her back. When she blunders, she gets angry, and can be dangerous.”

Even from the corner of his eye, he can see Tal shake his head. “Like all women.”

“She’s an orphan—a survivor,” Vasily cannot help but defend her, carefully restraining the reproach in his voice and gratified to see Tal look away. There is a burning on the back of his neck, and it distracts him enough for his next sentence to slip from his mind to his mouth. “She’s like us, losing is not an option for her. Otherwise, what would her life be?”

He has an irresistible urge to turn and meet the gaze of the girl he knows is there. After a second’s hesitation, he glances back—her face is turned away from him, cheek pale in the light, and he forces himself to look away, ashamed that he caved to his desires so easily. The guilt and stares of his compatriots wash over him, the tension in the closed room unbearable.

He walks out of the elevator doors as soon as they open, leading his unit down the hallway until they are standing on the balcony directly opposite the top board. “She is a strong competitor, but she can be easily beaten,” he reassures his teammates, his eyes flitting over to where she is standing and observing him with the two twin Americans. She is wearing yellow again, and the gold around his neck threatens to sear him alive. He cannot meet that gaze, and checks his watch to cover his look away. Their match will not begin for another forty-five minutes.

He finds Sonya and Misha downstairs in the hotel’s restaurant, finishing a late breakfast. He pats the top of his son’s head fondly and pulls out the chair across from their booth. “We were planning on going up soon,” Sonya says as she pours him a glass of water from the pitcher. He nods in acknowledgement, and looks over at Misha, who is flipping through the pages of the guidebook, pointing out the places that he remembers to his parents.

They leave together ten minutes before the match; while his family goes to their seats, he finds an empty room in which to gather his thoughts and clear his mind away from the hum of the hotel guests. It has already quieted by the time that he walks over to the top board.  _ Harmon _ , he thinks in time with his steps.  _ Harmon, Harmon, Harmon. _

The  _ Harmon _ in question is sitting behind the black pieces with her arms crossed and refuses to even glance at him as he approaches their table, only looking up when he is standing in front of her with his hand outstretched. Her grip is ordinary, he discovers to great comfort. After he adjusts his pieces, he allows himself to look at her, to study this  _ Harmon _ —the glamorous chess prodigy who makes men helpless. Her hair is redder than he thought it could be, but despite the calmness of her posture, the nervousness in her eyes is all too apparent.

“You may start your opponent’s clock,” the tournament director says.

So it begins. He sees her bring her hand up to touch the side of her neck—a gesture he remembers from a photo of her game against Watts during the U.S. Open—and they both know she has already lost, the otherworldly  _ Harmon _ of whispers shattering around her as easily as the possibility of her victory. It makes him angry, to know that the competitor he had imagined in his head and heard so many tales of was ultimately disappointing, helpless in the face of Vasily Borgov, World Champion. He pushes his pawn to king four.

She plays pawn to queen’s bishop four. The deviation from her typical response of the Sicilian surprises him, but not enough—he brings his king’s knight to bishop three, and she counters with hers to queen bishop three. He moves his bishop to knight five, and as she plays the Rossolimo, a camera flashes. She jerks in her seat, and the fury rises in him again. He moves his pawn to defend the bishop with vicious steadiness, as if to punish her weakness.

She resigns with a sullen motion of her hand, sending her king clattering to the board, and sits back, glaring at him with a petulant set to her mouth. He studies the board for a bit longer as the applause starts, feeling the heat of her resentment rush through him and sweetening the sharp edge of his triumph. He rises to shake her hand, feeling the trembling grip of her fingers, and steps away. Perhaps now that he has beaten her, her strange control over his thoughts would finally end.

Her absence at the awards ceremony is noted only by a brief pause when her name is announced, but the embarrassment is quickly overshadowed as he is called to the stage and declared the victor of the 1966 Mexico City Invitational. His family goes to a local restaurant in celebration—Misha is absolutely delighted, giddy off the joy of his father’s win, but perhaps more so the sweetness of the Coke they order for him and the unfamiliar spices in their food.

They return to the hotel less than two hours later, and despite her solid defeat at his hands, he still hears whispers of  _ Harmon _ . The lack of acknowledgement as he steps through the doors irritates him in a way that it hasn’t since he was a teenager, fighting for recognition in the competitive chess culture of his homeland. Yet something feels terribly wrong. In the lobby, there are two men discussing something in hushed Spanish, but they don’t bother to stop their conversation at the Borgovs walk by. “What are they saying?” the KGB agent asks Sonya.

She pauses, fidgeting with her purse as she discreetly listens in on their conversation. Vasily can see the moment the translation solidifies in her mind—her expression closes off, but she refuses to say anything until Misha is safely behind the doors of their room. “A stretcher came out from the American girl’s room,” she says to their handlers. “They are saying someone died, but whether it is the girl or the mother, no one knows.”

_ Harmon _ , possibly dead, and then likely by her own hand—the idea horrifies him. Already he is thinking of his inherent complicity in the matter—if only he had been less cruel in their match, she might not have done it. But then he reconsiders. To have treated her as if she was special, to give greater consideration to her supposedly more delicate feminine sensibilities and emotions, would have been a disservice, a disrespect that she would not have deserved. If she were truly to have killed herself over such a loss, it could not have been entirely him, for he is not even her first loss. Even as he excuses himself from the blame of her possible death, he cannot think of anything else but the waste it would be—the girl, gone, even before she could become the  _ Harmon _ they whispered of.

They learn by nightfall that it was Alma Wheatley in the stretcher after all. “Poor Beth Harmon,” Sonya whispers to him as she walks out to where he stands silently on the balcony, contemplating the city below them. “To be so young and alone in an unfamiliar country. It must be frightening.”

“She’s an orphan. A survivor.” He thinks of her eyes, angry in the face of her loss. “She’s not afraid of anything. Otherwise, how could she live?”


End file.
